Voice of the DBA

Tag: Redgate

  • The Book of Redgate: Taking Breaks

    We work hard at Redgate, though with a good work-life balance. One interesting observation for me (as an American) is how well most of the company in the UK works normal hours and rarely works outside of those.

    However, sometimes we do find people, especially engineers, heads down and very focused. With our engineers in the office a day or two a week, they might end up coding in a group and trying to solve a challenging issue.

    We used to have engineers working more than 8 hours regularly, often late, when they were in the office. I came across this page in the Book of Redgate.

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    The text below is: Working too hard? Why not relax with a gentle game of ping-pong.

    Our offices have always had some game tables. I don’t think we have ping pong in the new office, but we have a pool table near the coffee machines and I’ll see people taking a few minutes to play a game at different times. We also (I think) still have a foosball table.

    We have a piano upstairs, and some guitars in the foyer. I usually take a few minutes between meetings and strum some songs. Here’s the view I have most days when I’m in the office, a few minutes at a time.

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    We’re not afraid of resistant to working hard. We just try to take breaks and find balance.

    I have a copy of the Book of Redgate from 2010. This was a book we produced internally about the company after 10 years in existence. At that time, I’d been there for about 3 years, and it was interesting to learn a some things about the company. This series of posts looks back at the Book of Redgate 15 years later.

  • Monday Monitor Tips: AI Alert Analysis

    We keep adding new AI capabilities to Redgate Monitor, where it makes sense. Check out this new feature we’ve added for alerts. This is a great addition to help a busy Ops staff cope with a large database estate.

    This is part of a series of posts on Redgate Monitor. Click to see the other posts.

    Alert Index Analysis

    One of the new things we’ve added in Redgate Monitor is an AI analysis of your alerts. This isn’t for every alert. Right now, we have three where this works in preview:

    • Long-running query
    • blocking process
    • Deadlock

    This is documented on its own page.

    You can see this if you go to the Alerts page and look for a blocking process alert. Here’s a URL, but this repeats regularly, so just find the alert. You should see something like this:

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    If you click on the alert, then you’ll see the details, as shown here. However, to the right is an “AI Analyze Alert” button.

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    If you click that, a blade slides out from the right, and it has some analysis in it. This has a summary at the top. For my session, this had ended, so the summary is nice in that it gives me an overview with the time of the blocking and the statement. There is also a root cause analysis below this. This is something that would help me quickly answer questions from my boss.

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    Further down there is a diagnostic review, which helps you navigate Redgate Monitor to verify things. You should use the AI to help you and still verify what it says. This is a good explanation, but worth double checking. There are also recommended actions below this.

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    It’s a good way to approach a series of alerts, especially in a busy environment where you might have lots of these alerts across different systems.

    Summary

    AI is a great tool in places, and this is one of those measured approaches from Redgate to use AI where it’s helpful and useful, and does some work for you. Looking across a bunch of similar data and getting patterns, getting some quick insight into timings, that’s useful. This might be especially great when someone calls you with a question and you need a summary.

    As always, you should verify the diagnosis and recommendations before you do something, but this does give you a quick place to start fixing chronic issues in your system. I look forward to AI analysis coming to other alerts.

    Redgate Monitor is a world-class monitoring solution for your database estate. Download a trial today and see how it can help you manage your estate more efficiently.

  • Breaking Rules in Rome

    Last week I was honored with a trip to Rome for the Redgate President’s Club. I was awarded this, along with our top people in Sales, for the work I did in 2025. It was a fun trip, but as we prepared to depart Cambridge, one of the rules our Chief Revenue Officer gave us was:

    Don’t work this week

    She told us that the company should be able to survive a week without us. On Wednesday, I got reminded of this when I replied to a few Slack messages.

    Thursday I got reminded again.

    By Friday she had given up.

    It’s not that I don’t want to get away from work, or don’t, but there are things that come up and can be easily dealt with. In both cases, I had people ping me about things that are happening this week (18May) or in two weeks (1 Jun), and I need to ensure I’m prepped. I also had responses on a couple of SQL Server Central tickets, that I needed to provide a few details on.

    These were small things, and I wasn’t checking email or most Slack messages, only a few channels where I knew there would be some relevant activity. I also scanned email looking for only ticket responses so I could provide info if needed.

    Sometimes work takes priority over other things. I’ve had to handle a few things on sabbaticals. I’ve had to respond on vacation for certain things. In general I tell people to leave me alone, and they do for the most part.

    I’m not upset, and it’s the price of being successful and involved. Finding this balance is important, and it’s easy to work too much, or too little. I feel I’ve got a pretty good balance when I go on vacation, minimizing interruptions, though certainly not eliminating them.

    That being said, I did have a good time. Not sure why I’m not smiling, but the Colosseum was amazing.

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  • Redgate and Rome

    I’m at the UK Redgate office today, meeting with senior leaders in all areas of the business. I was honored to be awarded a spot in our President’s Club. This is where the top performing sales people get to meet with leaders in the company and then head off for a few days of relaxation and excitement.

    I’m here today and tomorrow and then off to Rome. We’re heading to tour the city, see the Vatican, and visit some great restaurants. I’m excited for the trip and I’ll have a few photos and thoughts next week, but I’m off this week.

    Hopefully it’s a quiet one for you.